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It’s well known that News Corp. has been unhappy about the success
of YouTube, even well before it was acquired by Google. Execs from the
company have often claimed that the video sharing site’s growth was
based on a free ride given to it by MySpace, as the social network’s
millions of users embedded YouTube videos onto their profiles, arguably
driving lots of traffic back to YouTube. Having missed the opportunity
to buy the video sharing site themselves, MySpace introduced its own
video functionality, which — though badly implemented (which is
becoming typical of new features added to the site e.g. MySpace News), hasn’t been unsuccessful, and according to Hitwise, is currently ranked number two.

However, second place represents 16% compared with YouTube’s 60% —
meaning that the Google-owned video sharing site is way out ahead of
the rest of the competition put together.

Enter: MySpaceTV, a MySpace video sharing feature done right. (Or a near-perfect YouTube clone).

My first reaction was: what took them so long?

Will the redesign help MySpace to make up ground on YouTube? Yes, no
doubt in my mind. My reasoning is based on the success of version 1,
which was pretty dreadful but still was able to get into second place —
proof of the value in having millions of users already loyal to the
site. Now that MySpace’s video section has a user interface that is
actually usable and one that will be familiar with users because of its
YouTube lineage — I think we’ll see MySpaceTV increase its share beyond
16%, and probably fairly quickly.

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MySpace « YouTube « 

Technorati Tags: google, free, news, social network, myspace, sharing, youtube

YouTube has updated their embedded video player
to include new features that I think make a lot of sense for Google.
The one I find most interesting gives users quick, uninterrupted access
to related videos — this feature could be YouTube’s much needed money
maker.

Why does a feature that doesn’t make YouTube any money right now
grab my attention? Well, it’s all about trying to set up a convention —
if they are successful, they are in a great position to make a lot of
money.

For the next several months, people will get very used to using the
related video tool that was just introduced. As soon as it becomes
second nature for users to use the tool, we should start to see
sponsored results mixed with these related videos. These advertisements
stay out of the way and are only seen when users are actually looking
for something — the reason Google’s other ads are so effective.

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Google « YouTube « 

Technorati Tags: google, money, youtube

There are several separate stories about Google Video and YouTube
floating around the blogosphere — some new features, some “woops”
moments and some integration news.

Let’s start with the new features. Google Video is now officially a “video search engine” according to Haochi.
He shows us that when you click on a video that has come up in your
search results but doesn’t belong to Google, you are sent to the video,
but they put their own frame at the top with more information about the
video in question. They have basically done for videos what they did
for images with Google Image Search.

Philipp Lenssen points out some interesting comments in the YouTube flash player found by Chad Upton — they were certainly never meant to be seen by the public.

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Google « YouTube « 

Technorati Tags: google, news, blog, youtube, google video, flash player